Ark vs Dagon

[1 Sam. 5:1] And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Eben-ezer unto Ashdod.
The capture of ark was brought from Ebenezer first to the Philistine city Ashdod and was kept here before the Philistine idol Dagon. In so doing the Philistines, just as the Israelites, committed the mistake of taking the symbol for the reality. They thought that by placing the ark before Dagon they could humiliate the G-d of the Israelites and assert Dagon’s superiority over him. Yahweh, who looks at the hearts of men and women, frustrated the Philistines intentions by creating panic among the people and by causing many deaths through plagues such as tumors, and mice. The ark was moved from one city to another, to all five cities of the Philistines, in the hope that such human adjustments would avert the plagues. But wherever the ark went there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city.
Ashdod or Azotus, one of the five Philistine satrapies, and a place of great strength. It was an inland town, thirty-four miles north of Gaza, now called Esdud.
The Israelites adapted the Canaanite sacrificial system and festivals and interpreted them in the context of their faith in Yahweh. Old Canaanite shrines were used for Yahweh worship. The worship of foreign deities such as Dagon was strictly prohibited. Since Baal and Ashtaroth were deities of a fertility cult, the Israelites, who were newly introduced to agriculture, were greatly tempted to worship them. Stately temples were erected in honor of this idol, which was the principal deity of the Philistines, but whose worship extended over all Syria, as well as Mesopotamia and Chaldea; its name being found among the Assyrian gods on the cuneiform inscriptions. It was represented under a hideous combination of a human head, breast, and arms, joined to the belly and tail of a fish. The captured ark was placed in the temple of Dagon, right before this image of the idol.
Ashdod lay midway betweren Joppa and Gaza. A village in that region still bears the name Eshdud today.
Arose early - They were filled with consternation when they found the object of their stupid reverence prostrate before the symbol of the divine presence. Though set up, it fell again, and lay in a state of complete mutilation; its head and arms, severed from the trunk, were lying in distant and separate places, as if violently cast off, and only the fishy part remained. The degradation of their idol, though concealed by the priests on the former occasion, was now more manifest and infamous. It lay in the attitude of a beaten enemy and a suppliant, and this picture of humiliation significantly declared the superiority of the G-d of Israel.
The temple of Dagon, said to have existed there, seems to have continued until the time of the Maccabees. There was another shrine of Dagon in Gaza. The nature and attributes of Dagon are not fully known to us. It is possible to relate this name to two Hebrew words – fish and corn.
The worship in Syria of the fish-god with the head and hands of a man and the body of a fish is well attested. This would make Dagon a fertility idol, the idol of the corn. He would be at home in the five grain growing cities of the plains of the Shephelah. Dagon fall, no head and no hands, only the trunk remained. This word trunk is not found in the Hebrew; it is supplied from the Targum and other ancient versions. One says that this half-fish and half human – leaped over the threshold are parallel by the Fish Gate. Such a ritual jumping over the threshold of temples was widely practiced in ancient times.
Yahweh proves to the Philistines to be more than the symbol of Yahweh’s presence, the ark, and the capture of the ark does not mean Dagon’s supremacy over him. This was symbolically indicated by the fact that the image of Dagon fell down before the ark and that its head and hands were cut off and were laying on the threshold of the temple. According to Philistine belief, the threshold itself now became holy in a special way.
The hand of the L-rd was heavy upon them of Ashdod - The presumption of the Ashdodites was punished by a severe judgment that overtook them in the form of a pestilence.
Emerods – tumors here are similar to the boils in Egypt. The Hebrew word for tumors is used elsewhere only in Deut. 28:27, where it refers to the boils in Egypt. Bleeding piles, hemorrhoids (Psalms 78:66), in a very irritated form. As the heathens generally regarded diseases affecting the secret parts of the body as punishments from the gods for trespasses committed against themselves, the Ashdodites would be the more ready to look upon the prevailing epidemic as demonstrating the anger of G-d, already shown against their idol.
The ark of G-d shall not abide with us - It was removed successively to several of the large towns of the country, but the same pestilence broke out in every place and raged so fiercely and fatally that the authorities were forced to send the ark back into the land of Israel (5:8-10).
So the ark was first sent to Gath and then to Ekron. 1 Sam. 6:17, however implies that the ark was sent to all five cities of the Philistines and that wherever it went the people were affected by the plagues. Ekron was the most northerly of the Philistine cities but the nearest one to the land of Israel.
Up to heaven is an idiomatic expression for prayers reaching to G-d. G-d answered their cry for all genuine cries of repentance and prayers reach Him, Acts 10:34-35.
The disease is attended with acute pain, and it is far from being a rare phenomenon in the Philistian plain.